I think they meant how did you link to the COMMENT, instead of just the comic. I know it’s URL/#comment-xxxxx, but even I don’t know how you get the comment number to refer to.
Between the date and the reply link there is a #, but only for top level comments. This links to the comment. For other comments you can do right click -> inspect element or something similar in modern browsers. There you can read it off as well.
When you hover over a “reply” link it gives the full url for replying to that comment in the status bar at the bottom of the browser. For instance, Rorror’s comment just about me here has comment number 979223. 🙂
If you mean how to jump to a specific comment I explain my kludgey method for it here.
One of these days I need to add something about what to do when there is no reply link because it is too many levels deep. I think you could use view source to get the number, but haven’t tried it.
I was about to say the same, but without the copy-URL’ing – I just hover the Reply link and read the number from the status bar. View-source works just as well if you know what you’re looking for.
It’s also possible with GreaseMonkey or TamperMonkey. Heck, I can even make a little bookmark that would make them display.
(Heck, I’m kinda thinking about making a GreaseMonkey script just to make it easier to see which comment is the parent of the current comment. It can be hard to follow sometimes. It’s why I use names when replying now.)
One of her flaws is that she has way too much faith in people. Assuming, for instance, that Joyce wouldn’t date a gay man to try and fix him or here that Walky wouldn’t at least show her when he’s hurting.
Sadly, that naivety is also a dangerous quality for a person wanting to enter into politics.
Please, please, please let this be the development in the next chapter. They finally snap her out of it by reminding her that if photos of her as a goth surface she’ll never get elected president.
Basically. As long as he’s not failing out of college, one class isn’t going to ruin his life, or anyone else’s. It probably won’t even lower Dorothy’s opinion of him by too much – She’ll probably just smile understandingly and say something like “welp that’s what the rest of the world has to do, want some help learning”
Basically. “See, Walky, this is what I meant about studying and how we are sometimes unamused. There is actually a rationale for how I approach schoolwork.”
Meanwhile, Walky is hoping Dorothy doesn’t remember him declaring himself a living god because he could skip class.
The problem is that this is freshman year. If he’s running into trouble now, if he doesn’t fix the problem, it won’t just be one class that he fails. And the further he digs himself into the not studying habit the harder it is to fix.
Source: Dropped out of college due to mostly this.
Actually, that can happen when smart guys who’ve never had to try very hard have difficulties for the first time. He has no idea how to actually learn, and he’s too proud and/or lazy to admit he needs help.
This, a thousand times this. That moment when everything stopped naturally being absorbed, and I realized I had no idea how to force information into the gray matter, was kind of awful. Twenty years later I still don’t know how to study, and am mostly propped up by the fact that anything I need to know is accessible via the supercomputer in my pocket.
Yep. My attitude when it first happened to me was, “I’ve failed. No, there’s no point in asking for help; don’t you understand that I’ve failed?! I can’t come back from this because it’s already in the past. This is not a slump I can pull out of; I have failed.
“Trying at this point is irrelevant.”
It’s a terrible mindset to be in because even if someone does try and sit down with you, even if they tell you, “No, you can totally do this, let’s just break it down and see where you’re missing a key piece of information,” until you manage to change your outlook you aren’t going to be able to hear what they’re saying because they obviously aren’t hearing you. “Look, I don’t understand this. What part of that is hard to get?!”
I’m working on my ham radio license which has an electronics component that I last saw in junior high, decades ago, and since then they’ve changed some of the symbols in the equations (Volts are equal to the amps times the resistance still; but now instead of writing Ohm’s Law as “V=A x R” they write it as “E = I x R” so until I fully memorize that E means volts (for “electromotive force”, the bastards; the I is for “current intensity” which is measured in amps), I am having a hell of a time figuring out which equation to use to figure out, say, the volts in a circuit, even if I can tell right away that it’s the volts I’m looking for.
So I’m struggling a bit because I barely get the difference between volts and amps anyways (I can tell you that volts are potential energy; and I can give you similes; but I don’t really know; I haven’t internalized that information yet). My instinct is to give up because I just don’t understand it; but I am forcing myself to look things up online and to just say “E=V” over and over until I get it. And it’s gradually sinking in. But twenty, thirty years ago, I would have just cried and given up, because I didn’t understand.
His grades aren’t all that important to the grand scheme of things, but to Walky it’s a blow to the ego. I can see how this might translate into a future situation:
Future Dorothy and Walky, Dorothy comes home from work
“How was your day at work, dear?”
Walky freezes up … ‘do I tell her I just got fired…?’
FiMfiction is a busy site. They have Fallout: Equestria, Timelords and Terror, more Star Wars and Warhammer 40K crossovers than one could shake the overengineered stick of their choice at, and pretty much everything else too. I guarantee there are at least three Discworld crossovers on there, and that’s not counting any that’re riddled with bad spelling and/or grammar.
a nice, uncomplicated boy who has no unresolved issues with his sister and isn’t hiding anything from me or having troubl–why ate you foaming at the mouth?
“HEHEHEH YEAH THAT’S RIGHT SIMPLE OL’ WALKY THAT’S ME. NO PROBLEMS HERE, HA HA.”
Oh, man, I can’t wait to see what happens when the “Bad grades” floodgate bursts open.
(Also now that Dotty has said that Joyce will be fine it’s almost guaranteed that Joyce will be not fine and will come back more stressed than ever. YAY COLLEGE.)
So what’s the desperate strategy Walky’s going to take to try to conceal his bad grades? Eat his report card? Sic Monkey Master on the Dean of Students? Hide behind Sal?
Your Walkerton(tm) unit contains no user serviceable parts. Please call our toll free number for a Return Authorization Number and we will ship you a comparable replacement model.
I really don’t like the “Walky gets bad grades” plot line. There was JUST a dude with a gun running around campus. Not acing your tests is a MILD CONCERN.
Yes, God forbid people go on with their life a week after a criminal is caught and imprisoned and worry about failing at the task that they’re actually there for.
AGH.
So, personal story: My mom hates to see me (or my brother, or sister) angry, sad, or basically anything that isn’t happy. She once even told me she’d rather me lie to her about being sad or angry at her than talk about what I was feeling because then I’d make HER sad or upset. It just majorly SUCKS to feel like you’re not allowed to be anything other than happy for the wellbeing of someone else.
So, while Dorothy here might not be saying this in the same way, I did feel a kinship to Walky’s expression in the last panel.
I feel you. I haven’t been told it explicitly in my case, but she starts freaking out if I’m anything but happy. It’s really really frustrating (aside from being awful for my mental health).
So yeah. I know how much that sucks. You have my sympathies, for what they’re worth.
I know that feeling. *hugs* I’m working through a depression and there are quite a few people in my life and my family who don’t ever wanna hear about it and pretend it doesn’t exist.
You got this. Be who you are and don’t let this crush you, I believe in you :3
Got that a lot growing up. “Happiness is a choice,” “”get over it,””what have you got to be sad about?” Part of it was a poorly acted upon concern for my social life, but also, parents worry about judgement from other adults – not without reason.
which leads to the question… has there been any “mom doing” in any of the slipshines? Could there, would there, ever be? Because even parent-aged characters have needs, too.
Technically, there was “mom doing” in the Slipshines from the Shortpacked universe; Amber and Mike had a child when their Slipshine went up, as did Robin and Leslie.
If you’re very very good, and pray really hard, maybe Willis will give you Amber’s mom and Joe’s dad for Christmas. (Sorry, can’t remember their names off the top of my head.)
And Dorothy continues with unintentionally causing pain by way of assuming the best in people.
Hmm. Apart from resenting that he needs to put effort into improving something (because needing to get better at something means that you’re not smart.), I wonder if Walky thinks that he can’t cause any kind of burden for Dorothy, because he’s supposed to be her For Fun Caramel Boyfriend and she’s got enough to deal with.
Ya I agree there not out of the woods yet, It could still go the same route that me and some others predicted about one of them will bring up the gun incident and Joyce going ballistic and losing her shit and start flipping over tables and cursing people out.
Flipping tables in the faces of people that are acting like jerks is, in fact, a time-honored tradition dating back to Jesus Christ himself. She’d only be acting Christlike.
Nope. Nope. Nope.
We’re going to mostly focus on campus shenanigans while Joyce & Becky are away. We’ll just a get a few establishing scenes of them at home, with nothing dramatic happening. The preview panels we’ve seen are pretty much all there is. They were just to mislead us.
That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.
Or the villain parents finally realized that there kids are too well protected on or near campus so Joyce’s dad is luring them away with “acceptance”. As soon as they get home, the storm will start.
Oh, man. I’m getting the distinct impression that Walky thought that there was something going on here between himself and Dorothy, or that something might have come of it. But Dorothy still sees Walky as just a cuddly plaything; a little “love ‘im and leave ‘im” boy-toy for when she needs to unstress or depressurize or whatever you call it now.
And in the last panel, I think Walky is starting to realize this as well.
Walkyverse Dina was a total failure. She’s set up in the old arc of “homely girl who learns how valuable and important she is” and instead gets repeatedly rejected, isolated, and pushed out of her job by people who are just plain better than her. No action she takes to prove her worth or salvage her last shred of self confidence actually succeeds, and she ultimately dies blaming herself for being such a useless screw up, while accidentally activating the bomb that kills her. She’s such a fuck up, and it’s barely even her fault because it’s not about her but the people around her just having no time for her, but hell, the only reason she even died is because she ran into a war zone of British ninjas. She plays a part in causing her own death.
Anyway what I’m saying is that WV Dina was only recognized as one of the best characters in the Walkyverse after it was too late, much like how everyone around her ended up treating her, and that is fantastic. She’s always going to be Real Dina to me, even though, while almost entirely bland for five years, this Dina got her own story arc that suddenly made her one of the better characters in the series, presumably through dark rituals and at least one sacrificial goat.
I can’t literally explain why a character is good. Despite how objectively correct and dashingly handsome I am, what makes a good character is inherently subjective. I feel like saying something like “she’s complex and nuanced and her story organically leads to a tragic conclusion”, but ultimately you don’t see the same greatness in Dina as I did.
It’s Walky! excelled at messing with established character tropes and reader assumptions, and Dina is one of the purest examples of that. She’s a good character because It’s Walky! was a good webcomic.
I’m sitting here and I’m wondering how to interpret this. Is this like the first time walky feels like people are calling him stupid because that comment from Dorothy and does he feel like she putting him down ? If that’s the case I hope that’s the thing that pushes him to actually try and not really on natural talent (also maybe spark some intellectual Rivalry between him and Dorothy).
Or is that look in his eyes some sort of look of fear that he thinks that if she finds out about him failing a class that she’ll dump him out of fear of him dragging her down?
Probably the second thing. He’s probably terrified that if Dorothy finds out he’s failing math, that she’ll dump him because he’s no longer good enough for her or something.
Walky lying to keep Dorothy happy is like Wile E. Coyote trying to blow out the TNT fuse. No matter how hard he tries, eventually there’s going to be an earth-shattering kaboom.
I really feel this strip. I totally get the dynamic between these two. I’ve been the Walky in this situation before – when you’re scared to tell your partner something that could change the whole happy, carefree nature of your relationship. I hope they can make it through this, because I’m really rooting for these two!
Oh god, she really SHOULD come back as Goth… to troll her friends.
I can see her and Becky giggle as they search through a trift shop for the most “satanistic” clothes they can find (and they will of course have a very limited understanding of the fashion), and then Joyce desperately trying not to laugh as Sarah and Dorothy bluescreen around her.
I have to agree with those who are a little unhappy with the way Dorothy describes Walky as her comfort and comic relief rather than her partner and friend first of all. Of course, it is quite possible that Willis is just lampshading the way some men, unfortunately, treat their significant others.
Dorothy would never abuse Walky; that’s totally out of her nature. However, I do think that she might under-value the man he is and wants to be. Of course, Walky has done nearly everything he can to ensure people see him as a light-hearted and simple person, so he’s going to have to work hard to change that viewpoint.
As for Joyce? I think that she’ll come back a totally different person because she’s going to find that her perfect family is and always was a lie. It’s just that Hank and Carol were very good at papering over the cracks for the sake of their younger children.
I’m with you, BenRG. Dorothy did start this relationship, seeing it as something to do for ‘fun’. Obviously things have changed since then, and I definitely do not doubt Dorothy’s feelings for Walky. However… I think some aspects of how she was in this ‘for fun’ linger in her subconcious. She seeks Walky out when she wants to be distracted from the awful parts of life (i.e., going to watch cartoons with him after Joyce was roofied). There’s nothing wrong with this because having a partner you can retreat to IS nice. It’s like a comfort zone!
But, that works against them a little. With everything that has been going on around them, the near shooting, Becky’s living arrangements, a disagreement between friends (aka Dorothy drinking at the party), Dorothy trying to balance her friendship with Joyce and trying to help Joyce change certain behaviors… Things have been getting really complicated for Dorothy. From her point of view, it probably seems that everybody BUT Walky is being emotional and on the verge of a breakdown. She has expressed worry over him, but Walky is slammed shut. For all she knows, maybe he had a bad lunch? And the one time things for Walky DID get serious, it was shrugged off as ‘Billy was just with her boyfriend guys’ and that was that.
She doesn’t MEAN to see Walky as some sort of cheap thrill, but comparing him to everyone else she knows means he comes off as nearly never having his own problems. And those he does have, usually overreactions, right? Cause Billy was just with her emotionally and mentally stable boyfriend, watching movies and not killing her liver…
Thinking more about the “for fun” part, I think this actually got hinted at way back, but that’s quite likely mostly a reaction to how her last relationship went bad and not really saying anything about what she wants from this one other than “Don’t be a clingy putz like Danny”. Which Walky isn’t, so that whole approach backfired. And she’s realized that, to some extent at least. She can’t treat him like Danny. The relationship habits she picked up dealing with Danny don’t apply. (The other time, I think, was the pajama jeans. She pushed Walky and rather than back down like Danny would have, he broke up with her. I think she even commented on that.)
She was rebounding from Danny and so desperate to avoid the mistakes that made ending that relationship so hard that she’s done long term damage to this one. It’s easy to do. I’ve done it.
Dorothy specified that it’s “for fun” because she’s going to Yale at some point and she doesn’t want it to get awkward like it was with Danny.
I don’t think she was rebounding. She just made it clear that this is not going to be a long thing, which Danny wanted and took harmful measures to try and achieve.
Ooh yeah, Danny is a committed kind of guy, and that can work with Amber (somewhat) because he’s committed to being by her side. But being committed to someone like Dorothy, who’s got her own plans in life, and even hoping she’ll ditch those plans or at least lower the bar she’s aiming for… Danny’s a sweet guy but he’s like a lovesick puppy. He places so much value in being somebody’s boyfriend, to the point of not having much self worth.
Even if Dorothy decided to try and make it work, I don’t see them working out. It was for the best that they split. They may have dated in high school, and both are nice but…there wasn’t a connection there. When I say for fun I don’t mean a fling or one night stand. Like you guys said, she wanted something that wasn’t going to be so… Serious doesn’t seem like the right word. Just, committed as Danny was, to the point of not thinking for himself. Something easy, and fun, without a bunch of red tape and ‘obligations’.
As for rebounding… I feel that in order for Dorothy to be rebounding off of Danny, she has to still have feelings for him, hence the need to stick to a guy and pursue a new relationship. I may be misunderstanding the definition for rebound though but that’s what I think it is at least. Dorothy cares about Danny but…she seems in love with Walky. Danny and Dorothy started off in love I’m sure but by the end it was likely just that neither saw a need to break up. Following Dorothy to college was the red flag that told Dorothy that Danny saw a future whereas she…didn’t. Not one she wanted, anyway.
The way I see it, what separates Danny/Amber with how Danny/Dorothy was early in the comic is that he’s approaching his current relationship with some self respect. Not buckets of it, this is Danny after all, but more that he’s making an effort to make things work with Amber because he likes her and wants to be with her, rather than with Dorothy where his entire reason to be was to follow her around.
I’m pretty sure at the beginning of it in high school, Danny was like he is with Amber more than he was at the beginning of the comic, a little less willing to totally cling to his partner and base his self worth around them, if only because I can’t see Dorothy last for two years with somebody who bases their entire life around her, and as time went on and he became more and more attached is when he started busting out the “We are soul mates!” line of thinking.
That’s why Amber and Danny work for me, even with the issues they do have which the comic has thankfully addressed. Love takes work, and Danny and Amber both are willing to put in the work for each other. Danny is also finding a better sense of himself and his worth.
That makes sense. Can’t blame him really, when you’re in high school and in a relationship, especially if it lasts a while…eventually you begin to get very attached. He was probably known as ‘Dorothy’s boyfriend’ rather than Danny. And knowing his parents, he probably had some pressure from them to ‘make it work, she’s stayed with you THIS long…’.
Hate to tell vapor-locked Walky, but compared to having your whole world-view blown apart one crappy grade doesn’t matter much. Of course it doesn’t help his ego much to essentially be patted on the head and told he’s a good puppy…
hey, to be fair, this is probably the biggest thing he’s ever had to personally deal with. his ‘deal with hard stuff’ muscles haven’t gotten much of a workout since he learned to talk to dorothy.
walky’s bio so far: coast through life, goof around, meet perfect girl, have trouble talking to her for like 2-3 days, hook up with her, get first quantifiable confirmation that you’re not awesome…mushroom cloud!
Not consciously, perhaps. However, she does seem to have a very orderly and tabular mind so she may find herself categorising everyone around her. That will probably cause issues in due time, if it is the case.
I wouldn’t put it that way. I think she’s just happy that, when all her other friends are dealing with emotional turmoil -which basically ropes her into dealing with emotional turmoil, because they’re her friends and she wants to help- she at least has one person she can just… chill out with. Take a break from the drama and just be happy.
It’s a complete destruction of his self-image, knowledge that he doesn’t have the skills to fix it, and the fact that the one person he might be able to go to for help and comfort is making him feel like if he does go to her about it, he’ll lose her.
Yeah, he got into college because he could guess his way through most of the tests in high school and so he’s learned to expect that his amazing skills of assumptions that turn out to be correct will get him through college as well. Except college is a higher level of education that actually requires him to study. For every class. That’s the realization that’s broken him. The grade was just the catalyst. (In lack of a better word)
I wouldn’t say “guess his way”, just that things before college came easily to him. He either learned them without much effort or basically already knew them. Because he really is smart, behind all the goofiness.
Yeah. This. I was where Walky is when I went to uni. School came easy for me – not because I was guessing, but I just absorbed it, often before class was covering it.
University brought a rather severe ramping up of the difficulty of the material, and less ability to coast by on knowing it – you had to knuckle down and do assignments, because tests counted for less. So the laziness that Walky and I cultivated due to being too fucking smart for the situations we were in was deadly.
Same for me, only it wasn’t so much the difficulty so much as the volume of material – by which I mean, the fact that there is simply no way for most college-level courses to cover everything during class time, so they have to do only the highlights and students are expected to make up the difference through reading, practice problems, etc. I was used to self-teaching, but not used to being expected to self-teach, and also not used to simply not being able to get a 95%+ just from the material covered in class.
I suppose guess was the wrong word to use. I meant that he probably was able to fill in the blanks of high school education by himself, either by knowing the answer from somewhere else or by making a guess based on what would make sense with the information he already had. I probably didn’t explain it much better here, sorry if I give the impression that he’s just a lucky idiot.
It’s going to shake Dorothy too, since she’s been relaxing a little bit, based partly on seeing Walky do well without much effort.
Not only will she help him study, but she’ll likely drive herself even harder.
Except it really is just one bad grade. Yes, he thinks it’s a big deal. But it’s not. Yes, he thinks his girlfriend will leave him. She won’t. Yes, he thinks it will destroy his self-image, but it won’t.
The whole point is that he’s catastrophizing. Believe me, as someone with an anxiety disorder, I can relate. But I can also relate to things like this never being as bad as you think.
It would be one bad grade if he generally studied and slacked off this time, but can do better next time. It’s not. It’s his entire scholastic strategy betraying him.
This is a collapse of his self-image (‘I’m so smart I succeed without trying’), and a realization that he needs to do something that he doesn’t have the discipline or skills to do in order to not actually fail the course (hopefully, it’s just that math course he’s having trouble with, and it’s not just serving to be representative of his whole course-load). (Also – He’s failed at least 2 tests, so far, one before he realized he needed to study, one after, because…he can’t do it.)
My only real annoyance with this plot was in that strip. That’s not how you study for math. That’s not even how you try to study for math when you don’t know how to study.
That’s how you fail to study for plenty of other subjects. Anything where you start with a reading assignment and then try to figure out what the important parts are and outline or take notes or fool yourself into thinking you comprehend it when you don’t. Memorization or theory or all sorts of other things.
Not math. Math you start by doing that night’s homework problems. If you can just do them, you’re pretty much done. If not, you can dig into that part of the chapter to figure it out, but it’s directed. There’s a goal. And it’s usually pretty easy to tell if you’re on the wrong track. There are also usually answers in the back for some of the problems. So do those, see if you get them right, that’s a good check.
Studying for math (and at least some of the hard sciences) is easy. The actual material may be hard, but the method for learning it is straight forward. Practice. A lot.
Now you need some self-discipline to do enough of it, which Walky certainly has trouble with, but the portrayal of it bothers me.
I think most of the problem here is in Walky’s head, mostly pride and fear. The moment Dorothy finds out Walky is having problems she is going to be so happy to be able to help him study. It will be sickeningly sweet. But instead he is going to lie and hide it until he fails a midterm and she ends up angry and hurt that she didn’t trust him… and why the hell can I be so smart about this stuff with fictional characters but screw up in reality so often? (my wife asks… constantly)
So this isn’t a huge deal. This is month two of university. Walky could easily re-do this or just shape up. He has a ton of time and a relatively well off family.
I kind of doubt Willis will have Walky drop out in self loathing and rage because he doesn’t expect to get back the first year. This would be a huge commitment for the rest of the comic. It’d be kind of limp for Walky to drop out for an in comic week then come back.
What I really hope for is some Walkerton family stuff: Sal is doing well and the golden child is flopping. It could be interesting.
(Though as an aside I have problems with how it has been told so far).
Walky’s not going anywhere, none of the cast members are. At some point in time Walky will actually bring his grades back up, but that’s not the important part in a work without a set end. It puts Walky in a new status quo that opens up storylines that were previously closed off. How does he deal with bad grades? How will this affect things with Dorothy? Why does he put so much stock in being the Perfect Genius? Will he talk to Sal? Will he pursue tutoring? Who will tutor them, a pre-established character or a brand new one? How much of this self image is rooted in his relationship with Sal and his parents?
You know, journeys and destinations and all that jazz.
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“WHAT HAPPY GOOFY BOY WHO IS THIS FUCKER I’LL BEAT HIM UP”
“…it’s YOU, Walky.”
“oh”
“fell for it again, did you”
Well he is not happy goofy that is uncomplicated at the moment now is he.
How do you know that, are you a witch? Er, I mean a wongo. Er, Walky started it.
“I was TOUCHING your FACE, Walky.”
“…nope still could’ve been anyone”
“I. Was TOUCHING. Your FAAAAAAAAAAACE.”
Your FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE
For a nickel?
With your penis?
With mikes penis. In all your moms, for a nickel.
I hear your mom takes wooden nickels.
She takes them in the FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE
Stop the Faces!
@ thejeff: You are fantastic.
Quite curious here, how did you link it directly to that comment?
{a href=”URL Link”}Words you want to use{/a}
Remember to replace the {} with greater than/less than symbols.
I think they meant how did you link to the COMMENT, instead of just the comic. I know it’s URL/#comment-xxxxx, but even I don’t know how you get the comment number to refer to.
Ana is pretty dedicated to the whole comments thing. Perhaps she keeps a record of the url that results after each posted comment?
Between the date and the reply link there is a #, but only for top level comments. This links to the comment. For other comments you can do right click -> inspect element or something similar in modern browsers. There you can read it off as well.
For every comment, mousing over the “Reply” link and reading the resulting url preview will give you the specific comment’s reference number. For instance, mousing over the reply button to your comment results in:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/throwdown/?replytocom=979223#respond, where 979223 is your comment number.
You’d then access that at a later date by inserting that number into (comicurl)/#comment-(number), without the parenthesis. In this case, it would be:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/throwdown/#comment-979223
When you hover over a “reply” link it gives the full url for replying to that comment in the status bar at the bottom of the browser. For instance, Rorror’s comment just about me here has comment number 979223. 🙂
If you mean how to jump to a specific comment I explain my kludgey method for it here.
One of these days I need to add something about what to do when there is no reply link because it is too many levels deep. I think you could use view source to get the number, but haven’t tried it.
Ah. That’ll do it.
The Internet salutes you, Captain.
Is that what that gesture is?
Well, this *is* the internet, how many gestures do you really expect us to use?
I was about to say the same, but without the copy-URL’ing – I just hover the Reply link and read the number from the status bar. View-source works just as well if you know what you’re looking for.
What Jen did was easier, though. She wanted to link to the top level, so all she had to do was click the # next to the timestamp.
@Captain Button @Kamino Neko
The # sign is actually there on every comment. It’s just hidden for some reason on all but the top comment.
If you use Stylish, you can just add the following to a UserScript for this page, and every comment will have a permalink:
.comment-permalink {display: initial !important;
}
It’s also possible with GreaseMonkey or TamperMonkey. Heck, I can even make a little bookmark that would make them display.
(Heck, I’m kinda thinking about making a GreaseMonkey script just to make it easier to see which comment is the parent of the current comment. It can be hard to follow sometimes. It’s why I use names when replying now.)
Thanks @trlkly
Damn, she really hasn’t figured it out yet?
One of her flaws is that she has way too much faith in people. Assuming, for instance, that Joyce wouldn’t date a gay man to try and fix him or here that Walky wouldn’t at least show her when he’s hurting.
Sadly, that naivety is also a dangerous quality for a person wanting to enter into politics.
Apathy is the way to go, headphones and AC-DC block out the terrible things of the world.
Oh, man, now I’m just imagining what a goth Dorothy (Dorgothy?) would be like.
Im describing myself you wombat.
Please, please, please let this be the development in the next chapter. They finally snap her out of it by reminding her that if photos of her as a goth surface she’ll never get elected president.
I think she assumes that Walky is an open book, and she just doesn’t think about the possibility that he might be hiding something.
… You’re basically broadcasting things’ll go to hell in a few days at this point.
why do I get the feeling that by the time Joyce and Becky return the dorm will be on fire and that’ll be the least concerning thing going on.
So you are Predicting this basically:
http://greendalecommunity.tumblr.com/post/27128128560/pho-carrot-im-gonna-go-as-fast-as-i-can-so-i
Well… In place of Troy, imagine the door connecting to another room, with the same scene going on.
Walky’s facade has been broken.
Dat thousand yard stare….
jesus walky calm down nobody cares about your grades
Basically. As long as he’s not failing out of college, one class isn’t going to ruin his life, or anyone else’s. It probably won’t even lower Dorothy’s opinion of him by too much – She’ll probably just smile understandingly and say something like “welp that’s what the rest of the world has to do, want some help learning”
Basically. “See, Walky, this is what I meant about studying and how we are sometimes unamused. There is actually a rationale for how I approach schoolwork.”
Meanwhile, Walky is hoping Dorothy doesn’t remember him declaring himself a living god because he could skip class.
The problem is that this is freshman year. If he’s running into trouble now, if he doesn’t fix the problem, it won’t just be one class that he fails. And the further he digs himself into the not studying habit the harder it is to fix.
Source: Dropped out of college due to mostly this.
not even him it seems since he isn’t working to improve them like his sis did.
Actually, that can happen when smart guys who’ve never had to try very hard have difficulties for the first time. He has no idea how to actually learn, and he’s too proud and/or lazy to admit he needs help.
This, a thousand times this. That moment when everything stopped naturally being absorbed, and I realized I had no idea how to force information into the gray matter, was kind of awful. Twenty years later I still don’t know how to study, and am mostly propped up by the fact that anything I need to know is accessible via the supercomputer in my pocket.
Yep. My attitude when it first happened to me was, “I’ve failed. No, there’s no point in asking for help; don’t you understand that I’ve failed?! I can’t come back from this because it’s already in the past. This is not a slump I can pull out of; I have failed.
“Trying at this point is irrelevant.”
It’s a terrible mindset to be in because even if someone does try and sit down with you, even if they tell you, “No, you can totally do this, let’s just break it down and see where you’re missing a key piece of information,” until you manage to change your outlook you aren’t going to be able to hear what they’re saying because they obviously aren’t hearing you. “Look, I don’t understand this. What part of that is hard to get?!”
I’m working on my ham radio license which has an electronics component that I last saw in junior high, decades ago, and since then they’ve changed some of the symbols in the equations (Volts are equal to the amps times the resistance still; but now instead of writing Ohm’s Law as “V=A x R” they write it as “E = I x R” so until I fully memorize that E means volts (for “electromotive force”, the bastards; the I is for “current intensity” which is measured in amps), I am having a hell of a time figuring out which equation to use to figure out, say, the volts in a circuit, even if I can tell right away that it’s the volts I’m looking for.
So I’m struggling a bit because I barely get the difference between volts and amps anyways (I can tell you that volts are potential energy; and I can give you similes; but I don’t really know; I haven’t internalized that information yet). My instinct is to give up because I just don’t understand it; but I am forcing myself to look things up online and to just say “E=V” over and over until I get it. And it’s gradually sinking in. But twenty, thirty years ago, I would have just cried and given up, because I didn’t understand.
He does care enough that he did try to study. Then gave up like 5 minutes later since he doesn’t know how.
Yeah, fuck you walky.
His grades aren’t all that important to the grand scheme of things, but to Walky it’s a blow to the ego. I can see how this might translate into a future situation:
Future Dorothy and Walky, Dorothy comes home from work
“How was your day at work, dear?”
Walky freezes up … ‘do I tell her I just got fired…?’
Will the smiling Joyce we’ve all come to love come back with a pony, too?
As long as it ain’t a Death Pony.
Now I am picturing a Discworld-MLP:FIM crossover.
I’m sure it exists. There is not a character in fiction who has not been ponified at some point.
FiMfiction is a busy site. They have Fallout: Equestria, Timelords and Terror, more Star Wars and Warhammer 40K crossovers than one could shake the overengineered stick of their choice at, and pretty much everything else too. I guarantee there are at least three Discworld crossovers on there, and that’s not counting any that’re riddled with bad spelling and/or grammar.
I hate it when things I write are riddled with grammar. 😉
Oh I was referring to the Death Pony from this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIY41LrvMFQ
A pony, maybe. A rainbow unicorn… not so likely.
How about a pink, fluffy unicorn?
Joyce becomes a Pegsister?
I don’t think Joyce would be into pegging.
Well if she discovers that she is, she’s already googled it.
Wonder if Walky will tell her or will she find out from Joyce.
yeah it always feels nice to have your friends smiling. or so i am told
*throws a Tom Hanks DVD box set at Walky*
“Mrs. Bean! Stephen threw a DVD box set at me!”
“That probably means he likes you.”
A lot of us really miss that Joyce, Dorothy. I was glad when she showed up for a brief moment in panel 5 on Saturday.
Man, Walky’s so screwed…
Hopefully literally/
Indeed! Premarital hankies panky for everyone!
none for me thanks. the only people who seem to want to do that with me are already maritalized…..
This pluralization amuses me.
I thought it had been established that “hankies panky” was a threesome.
Who else are they inviting?
Premarital Hanky-pankies would thus be multiple instances of the more common two-person practice.
They’ve jackhammered when they feel it appropriate, and seem to have a healthy sex life. I think it’s more critical for them to talk to each other.
I require the source of your avatar.
Dat jinx
At least it’s not a Mr. Mime.
Holy shit Walky’s really upset about his grades.
Okay Walky, that settles it. All you have to do now is just keep lying forever!
I’m sure it’ll work out just fine.
Dotty needs to practice her lying skills if she plans of becoming a politician and later on, president one day.
Nah, she’s got ideals, she’s already doomed.
a nice, uncomplicated boy who has no unresolved issues with his sister and isn’t hiding anything from me or having troubl–why ate you foaming at the mouth?
Just as Dorothy said that, Walky ascended to next plane of existing, leaving behind his meaningless human body as an empty shell.
Ah so he finally got out of the pupa stage. About time I haven’t seen that stupid look on him since he met Dorothy.
Well, he is a student, so he’s definitely in the ‘pupil’ stage.
I have often been that goofy person to whom people retreat. Once I would like to be the one being comforted. I feel ya, Walky!
“HEHEHEH YEAH THAT’S RIGHT SIMPLE OL’ WALKY THAT’S ME. NO PROBLEMS HERE, HA HA.”
Oh, man, I can’t wait to see what happens when the “Bad grades” floodgate bursts open.
(Also now that Dotty has said that Joyce will be fine it’s almost guaranteed that Joyce will be not fine and will come back more stressed than ever. YAY COLLEGE.)
Expecting happiness is never a good idea.
Unless you’re in a ball pit. Nothing bad ever happens in a ball pit!
My brother found a dirty diaper in a ball pit once…
Then how did the skeletons get there?
Some people probably partied inside the ball pit and dropped down exhausted.
The McNugget gang dumps their victims where Officer Big Mac won’t find them.
[Internal screaming]
There is a lot of that this week…
time until some guy calls Dorothy a jerk for things she either can’t control or hasn’t been told about…3…2…1…
The thing people seem to forget is that all of the characters are secretly evil.
Wait, does that mean Mary and Mike are secretly good?
Good Isn’t Nice
Good Isn’t Soft
Good Isn’t Dumb
I’m not good, I’m not nice, I’m just right.
No, it means they’re even more evil than they let on.
Mike? Maybe. Mary? Hell no.
She might think she is. Does that count?
Well Mike isn’t drunk so…..
No, they are decoys.
So what’s the desperate strategy Walky’s going to take to try to conceal his bad grades? Eat his report card? Sic Monkey Master on the Dean of Students? Hide behind Sal?
Or he could just throw them at Dorothy’s head and run. It worked last time!
He’s going to take the most absurd, dangerous, and ridiculous option.
Ask (somebody who isn’t Dorothy, and doesn’t know her) for help.
If you look closely you can see the exact moment Walky’s sphincter closed in on itself.
Dammit, Dorothy, didn’t anyone ever teach you not to go around dramatic ironying like that?
I think she just broke Walky.
Your Walkerton(tm) unit contains no user serviceable parts. Please call our toll free number for a Return Authorization Number and we will ship you a comparable replacement model.
That just makes it sound like she’s going to end up dating Sal. 😛
Sal’s good at math so it’d clearly be an upgrade.
Yep, he just bluescreened.
I really don’t like the “Walky gets bad grades” plot line. There was JUST a dude with a gun running around campus. Not acing your tests is a MILD CONCERN.
Is anything not a mild concern compared to that?
Maybe it’s like one of those micro-aggression thingies.
If we rate these like peppers then “Toedad” would be pepper spray and “Walky gets bad grades” would be apples.
Apples hurt when they’re thrown at your FAAAAACE!
So does pepper spray.
Oh man, now I’m remember that video of that guy not knowing how a can of pepper spray works and just throwing it at the tiger.
I don’t think that guy ever used a deodorant, if he didn’t know how the can of pepper spray works.
My deodorant twists.
Sometimes it also foxtrots.
For a nickel!
Or your NAAAAADS.
Just one gun? What are those spoiled college kids so upset about when there are other people living in warzones?
Isn’t it awful how people are only able to care about one thing at a time, huh?
The dude with the gun is gone now. But those grades are still there and will end up on your PERMANENT RECORD!!!
I think it says pretty interesting things about Walky as a character. It is a big deal because he makes it a big deal.
Yes, God forbid people go on with their life a week after a criminal is caught and imprisoned and worry about failing at the task that they’re actually there for.
Dotty: “Dammit Walky BSODed, Mike can you reboot him for me?”
Mike: *Puts on his Doc Martens*
Uh… Briefly Stripped Off Denims?
Blue Screen Of Death, like when Windows crashes.
I like mine better.
Windows NT has crashed
I am the Blue Screen of Death
No one hears your screams
Uh oh, now he can’t tell her he’s stressed about school cuz she won’t love him anymore.
Oops.
I feel for ya, Walky, really bad.
AGH.
So, personal story: My mom hates to see me (or my brother, or sister) angry, sad, or basically anything that isn’t happy. She once even told me she’d rather me lie to her about being sad or angry at her than talk about what I was feeling because then I’d make HER sad or upset. It just majorly SUCKS to feel like you’re not allowed to be anything other than happy for the wellbeing of someone else.
So, while Dorothy here might not be saying this in the same way, I did feel a kinship to Walky’s expression in the last panel.
*pat pat*
There there, you’re among friends.
Also your mom sounds like a butt. Sorry.
She’s kind of a butt in that aspect. 😛
Also, thank you.
I feel you. I haven’t been told it explicitly in my case, but she starts freaking out if I’m anything but happy. It’s really really frustrating (aside from being awful for my mental health).
So yeah. I know how much that sucks. You have my sympathies, for what they’re worth.
They’re worth lots. Thank you. 🙂
Yeah, I saw that in his eyes too. Poor guy should really know by now she’d rather he speak up; she’s asked him enough times to open up a little.
Tell her the TRUTH!
That’s not how men work.
I know that feeling. *hugs* I’m working through a depression and there are quite a few people in my life and my family who don’t ever wanna hear about it and pretend it doesn’t exist.
You got this. Be who you are and don’t let this crush you, I believe in you :3
Thank you! And same right back at you! 🙂
Got that a lot growing up. “Happiness is a choice,” “”get over it,””what have you got to be sad about?” Part of it was a poorly acted upon concern for my social life, but also, parents worry about judgement from other adults – not without reason.
*air hug* It’s okay to not be okay.
Thanks 🙂
[internal screaming]
Also…”what could possibly go wrong?”
Quick Walky, don’t communicate even harder than you already aren’t communicating!
Uh, Im early, Ive never been up this late, WHAT DO I DO I HAD TOO MUCH COFFEE
Walky:…..Dorothy I’m failing math.
“WELL YOU ARE FAILING RELATIONSHIPS TOO NOW”
FUCK YOU WALKY
Fuck you walky.
Walky, she’s calling you stupid.
And doing your mom!
I’d buy that for a dollar!
You mean, a nickel.
Dorothy on Walky’s Mom action is worth more than a nickel. Come now.
So 5 nickels?
which leads to the question… has there been any “mom doing” in any of the slipshines? Could there, would there, ever be? Because even parent-aged characters have needs, too.
There better be, or Im cancelling my subscription
There was Mike and Amber Pound Each Other In The Most Epic of Hate Fucks..
Technically, there was “mom doing” in the Slipshines from the Shortpacked universe; Amber and Mike had a child when their Slipshine went up, as did Robin and Leslie.
If you’re very very good, and pray really hard, maybe Willis will give you Amber’s mom and Joe’s dad for Christmas. (Sorry, can’t remember their names off the top of my head.)
And Dorothy continues with unintentionally causing pain by way of assuming the best in people.
Hmm. Apart from resenting that he needs to put effort into improving something (because needing to get better at something means that you’re not smart.), I wonder if Walky thinks that he can’t cause any kind of burden for Dorothy, because he’s supposed to be her For Fun Caramel Boyfriend and she’s got enough to deal with.
I doubt he put that much thought into it before, but after this strip, I believe that’s what he feels he has to be now.
His academic issues aside, that was a rather belittling remark Dorothy made.
He’s her toy boy.
No comments tonight, as everybody is feeling the bern.
Then what are these?
[gesture]
These aren’t the comments you’re looking for.
[/gesture]
Uh… nothing at all. Theses are sandwiches. Yeah that’s it, sandwiches.
Well… Jason’s dancecard’s gonna be full, again. 😉
I bet he’s a terrible dancer.
[insert obligatory penis joke]
He’s just afraid Joyce will come back with MORE Hymmel shows.
(http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/02-i-was-a-teenage-churchmouse/freezeframe/)
You cant ever have enough.
We don’t think Walky was just in ONE episode, do we?
Despite not a shred of evidence, I still maintain my headcanon that Becky brought her old Hymmel tapes when she went back to Andersons.
We need more Walky Churchmouse <3
Oh no, the Walky BSOD.
Also, I think they’re being prematurely optimistic about Joyce’s parents, plural.
Ya I agree there not out of the woods yet, It could still go the same route that me and some others predicted about one of them will bring up the gun incident and Joyce going ballistic and losing her shit and start flipping over tables and cursing people out.
Flipping tables in the faces of people that are acting like jerks is, in fact, a time-honored tradition dating back to Jesus Christ himself. She’d only be acting Christlike.
Nope. Nope. Nope.
We’re going to mostly focus on campus shenanigans while Joyce & Becky are away. We’ll just a get a few establishing scenes of them at home, with nothing dramatic happening. The preview panels we’ve seen are pretty much all there is. They were just to mislead us.
That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.
Or the villain parents finally realized that there kids are too well protected on or near campus so Joyce’s dad is luring them away with “acceptance”. As soon as they get home, the storm will start.
And so the league of transparently evil villain parents grows in numbers.
Oh, man. I’m getting the distinct impression that Walky thought that there was something going on here between himself and Dorothy, or that something might have come of it. But Dorothy still sees Walky as just a cuddly plaything; a little “love ‘im and leave ‘im” boy-toy for when she needs to unstress or depressurize or whatever you call it now.
And in the last panel, I think Walky is starting to realize this as well.
Dorothy told Walky, literally to his face, that she genuinely loved him and it was going to tear her apart leaving him so she could go to Yale.
“Told him to his face some time ago” and “he realizes it” aren’t quite the same thing with Young Mr Walkerton, sometimes.
It was a whole thing! Twice! Walky even says that knowing Dorothy loves him is like the biggest thing he’s ever accomplished!
This comic ain’t called Smarting of Age, now is it?
wait, so we got one strip of dina and then cut away immediately? *shakes fist at the sky* WILLIS
psh who even likes dina
shes like the lamest character ever
best she could do lol
You wot m8 die in a hole flame more flame spam flame omg die.
the joke is that it was funny when dina exploded and died
i didnt like walkyverse dina but shes completely different here anyway
Walkyverse Dina is a better character than DoA Dina.
fite me
*fights*
*fites*
thats definitely not true
um actually its the absolute truth
Walkyverse Dina was a total failure. She’s set up in the old arc of “homely girl who learns how valuable and important she is” and instead gets repeatedly rejected, isolated, and pushed out of her job by people who are just plain better than her. No action she takes to prove her worth or salvage her last shred of self confidence actually succeeds, and she ultimately dies blaming herself for being such a useless screw up, while accidentally activating the bomb that kills her. She’s such a fuck up, and it’s barely even her fault because it’s not about her but the people around her just having no time for her, but hell, the only reason she even died is because she ran into a war zone of British ninjas. She plays a part in causing her own death.
Anyway what I’m saying is that WV Dina was only recognized as one of the best characters in the Walkyverse after it was too late, much like how everyone around her ended up treating her, and that is fantastic. She’s always going to be Real Dina to me, even though, while almost entirely bland for five years, this Dina got her own story arc that suddenly made her one of the better characters in the series, presumably through dark rituals and at least one sacrificial goat.
i dont see how any of that made her a good character
I can’t literally explain why a character is good. Despite how objectively correct and dashingly handsome I am, what makes a good character is inherently subjective. I feel like saying something like “she’s complex and nuanced and her story organically leads to a tragic conclusion”, but ultimately you don’t see the same greatness in Dina as I did.
It’s Walky! excelled at messing with established character tropes and reader assumptions, and Dina is one of the purest examples of that. She’s a good character because It’s Walky! was a good webcomic.
DAMNITWILLIS
I’m sitting here and I’m wondering how to interpret this. Is this like the first time walky feels like people are calling him stupid because that comment from Dorothy and does he feel like she putting him down ? If that’s the case I hope that’s the thing that pushes him to actually try and not really on natural talent (also maybe spark some intellectual Rivalry between him and Dorothy).
Or is that look in his eyes some sort of look of fear that he thinks that if she finds out about him failing a class that she’ll dump him out of fear of him dragging her down?
Probably the second thing. He’s probably terrified that if Dorothy finds out he’s failing math, that she’ll dump him because he’s no longer good enough for her or something.
DUN DUN DUNN
Walky is making the exact same mistakes I did in College. Ask for help Walky! Let me live vicariously through your success!
“You know, through all this confusion, you’ve stayed… well, you’ve stayed our happy girl.”
Checked the comments to make sure that somebody had already referenced this, was not disappointed. ^.^
“I’MSOSORRYIHAVEBADGRADESGOODBYEFOREVER!!!!!!”
“Huh, oh, OK, let’s study together. I can help you with some study technique, and when we are done we can smooch. Sounds like a deal?”
“But… aren’t you going to reject me in favor of someone more worthy of your love?”
“Waaaaalky, have you been melodramatic again?”
“Maybe…”
“Although come to think of it, my ex IS really good at math…”
“Aaaaaarrrrggghhh!!!”
And then a scene where Danny has to emulate self-worth again.
Danny is exactly the kind of person who’d give his ex’s new boyfriend tutoring, isn’t he?
Walky lying to keep Dorothy happy is like Wile E. Coyote trying to blow out the TNT fuse. No matter how hard he tries, eventually there’s going to be an earth-shattering kaboom.
Sorry, Dorothy. That perfect girl is gone.
And that perfect boy, too.
Nice catch!
HERE I AM, IN THE LIGHT OF DAAAAYYYY
I really feel this strip. I totally get the dynamic between these two. I’ve been the Walky in this situation before – when you’re scared to tell your partner something that could change the whole happy, carefree nature of your relationship. I hope they can make it through this, because I’m really rooting for these two!
Joyce comes back a Goth.
Faaaaaanart?
I better see some fanart, Jen Aside, step up your game.
Can I ship Joyce the Perky Goth with Gilly from Dork Tower then?
(Since Kovalic is never going to let her get together with Matt.)
Oh god, she really SHOULD come back as Goth… to troll her friends.
I can see her and Becky giggle as they search through a trift shop for the most “satanistic” clothes they can find (and they will of course have a very limited understanding of the fashion), and then Joyce desperately trying not to laugh as Sarah and Dorothy bluescreen around her.
I’m not picturing Joyce dressed as Death from Sandman
*now picturing… really should proof read my comments before hitting post…
Death from Sandman is adorable.
You know what would make it EVEN MORE adorable? DISNEY PRINCESSES!!!!
http://amymebberson.tumblr.com/post/33435728168/what-snow-white-did-to-pass-the-time-while-waiting
Or she goes the other way and comes back in Harley Quinn cosplay
Walky: *screams internally*
I have to agree with those who are a little unhappy with the way Dorothy describes Walky as her comfort and comic relief rather than her partner and friend first of all. Of course, it is quite possible that Willis is just lampshading the way some men, unfortunately, treat their significant others.
Dorothy would never abuse Walky; that’s totally out of her nature. However, I do think that she might under-value the man he is and wants to be. Of course, Walky has done nearly everything he can to ensure people see him as a light-hearted and simple person, so he’s going to have to work hard to change that viewpoint.
As for Joyce? I think that she’ll come back a totally different person because she’s going to find that her perfect family is and always was a lie. It’s just that Hank and Carol were very good at papering over the cracks for the sake of their younger children.
I don’t think she does undervalue him. I think she values him precisely for that. Because it’s something she doesn’t do well and something she needs.
You’re a snarky, emotionally-stunted goofball who nonetheless fights selflessly for his friends. That’s what I see and that’s what I love.
But she may like him even more when he drops the goofball act.
Personally I think she’s just describing him as such out loud because she’s trying to be nice and funny. (It works, if you ask me.)
I’m sure that internally, she considers him her romantic partner and close friend above all.
I’m with you, BenRG. Dorothy did start this relationship, seeing it as something to do for ‘fun’. Obviously things have changed since then, and I definitely do not doubt Dorothy’s feelings for Walky. However… I think some aspects of how she was in this ‘for fun’ linger in her subconcious. She seeks Walky out when she wants to be distracted from the awful parts of life (i.e., going to watch cartoons with him after Joyce was roofied). There’s nothing wrong with this because having a partner you can retreat to IS nice. It’s like a comfort zone!
But, that works against them a little. With everything that has been going on around them, the near shooting, Becky’s living arrangements, a disagreement between friends (aka Dorothy drinking at the party), Dorothy trying to balance her friendship with Joyce and trying to help Joyce change certain behaviors… Things have been getting really complicated for Dorothy. From her point of view, it probably seems that everybody BUT Walky is being emotional and on the verge of a breakdown. She has expressed worry over him, but Walky is slammed shut. For all she knows, maybe he had a bad lunch? And the one time things for Walky DID get serious, it was shrugged off as ‘Billy was just with her boyfriend guys’ and that was that.
She doesn’t MEAN to see Walky as some sort of cheap thrill, but comparing him to everyone else she knows means he comes off as nearly never having his own problems. And those he does have, usually overreactions, right? Cause Billy was just with her emotionally and mentally stable boyfriend, watching movies and not killing her liver…
Walky, talk to your dang girlfriend mang.
Thinking more about the “for fun” part, I think this actually got hinted at way back, but that’s quite likely mostly a reaction to how her last relationship went bad and not really saying anything about what she wants from this one other than “Don’t be a clingy putz like Danny”. Which Walky isn’t, so that whole approach backfired. And she’s realized that, to some extent at least. She can’t treat him like Danny. The relationship habits she picked up dealing with Danny don’t apply. (The other time, I think, was the pajama jeans. She pushed Walky and rather than back down like Danny would have, he broke up with her. I think she even commented on that.)
She was rebounding from Danny and so desperate to avoid the mistakes that made ending that relationship so hard that she’s done long term damage to this one. It’s easy to do. I’ve done it.
Dorothy specified that it’s “for fun” because she’s going to Yale at some point and she doesn’t want it to get awkward like it was with Danny.
I don’t think she was rebounding. She just made it clear that this is not going to be a long thing, which Danny wanted and took harmful measures to try and achieve.
Ooh yeah, Danny is a committed kind of guy, and that can work with Amber (somewhat) because he’s committed to being by her side. But being committed to someone like Dorothy, who’s got her own plans in life, and even hoping she’ll ditch those plans or at least lower the bar she’s aiming for… Danny’s a sweet guy but he’s like a lovesick puppy. He places so much value in being somebody’s boyfriend, to the point of not having much self worth.
Even if Dorothy decided to try and make it work, I don’t see them working out. It was for the best that they split. They may have dated in high school, and both are nice but…there wasn’t a connection there. When I say for fun I don’t mean a fling or one night stand. Like you guys said, she wanted something that wasn’t going to be so… Serious doesn’t seem like the right word. Just, committed as Danny was, to the point of not thinking for himself. Something easy, and fun, without a bunch of red tape and ‘obligations’.
As for rebounding… I feel that in order for Dorothy to be rebounding off of Danny, she has to still have feelings for him, hence the need to stick to a guy and pursue a new relationship. I may be misunderstanding the definition for rebound though but that’s what I think it is at least. Dorothy cares about Danny but…she seems in love with Walky. Danny and Dorothy started off in love I’m sure but by the end it was likely just that neither saw a need to break up. Following Dorothy to college was the red flag that told Dorothy that Danny saw a future whereas she…didn’t. Not one she wanted, anyway.
The way I see it, what separates Danny/Amber with how Danny/Dorothy was early in the comic is that he’s approaching his current relationship with some self respect. Not buckets of it, this is Danny after all, but more that he’s making an effort to make things work with Amber because he likes her and wants to be with her, rather than with Dorothy where his entire reason to be was to follow her around.
I’m pretty sure at the beginning of it in high school, Danny was like he is with Amber more than he was at the beginning of the comic, a little less willing to totally cling to his partner and base his self worth around them, if only because I can’t see Dorothy last for two years with somebody who bases their entire life around her, and as time went on and he became more and more attached is when he started busting out the “We are soul mates!” line of thinking.
That’s why Amber and Danny work for me, even with the issues they do have which the comic has thankfully addressed. Love takes work, and Danny and Amber both are willing to put in the work for each other. Danny is also finding a better sense of himself and his worth.
That makes sense. Can’t blame him really, when you’re in high school and in a relationship, especially if it lasts a while…eventually you begin to get very attached. He was probably known as ‘Dorothy’s boyfriend’ rather than Danny. And knowing his parents, he probably had some pressure from them to ‘make it work, she’s stayed with you THIS long…’.
Hate to tell vapor-locked Walky, but compared to having your whole world-view blown apart one crappy grade doesn’t matter much. Of course it doesn’t help his ego much to essentially be patted on the head and told he’s a good puppy…
hey, to be fair, this is probably the biggest thing he’s ever had to personally deal with. his ‘deal with hard stuff’ muscles haven’t gotten much of a workout since he learned to talk to dorothy.
walky’s bio so far: coast through life, goof around, meet perfect girl, have trouble talking to her for like 2-3 days, hook up with her, get first quantifiable confirmation that you’re not awesome…mushroom cloud!
Interesting. Does Dorothy like the people around her simple and easily pigeonholed? Props for her purpose?
Not consciously, perhaps. However, she does seem to have a very orderly and tabular mind so she may find herself categorising everyone around her. That will probably cause issues in due time, if it is the case.
I wouldn’t put it that way. I think she’s just happy that, when all her other friends are dealing with emotional turmoil -which basically ropes her into dealing with emotional turmoil, because they’re her friends and she wants to help- she at least has one person she can just… chill out with. Take a break from the drama and just be happy.
For grok’s sake, people.
It’s not ‘one bad grade’.
It’s a complete destruction of his self-image, knowledge that he doesn’t have the skills to fix it, and the fact that the one person he might be able to go to for help and comfort is making him feel like if he does go to her about it, he’ll lose her.
Yeah, he got into college because he could guess his way through most of the tests in high school and so he’s learned to expect that his amazing skills of assumptions that turn out to be correct will get him through college as well. Except college is a higher level of education that actually requires him to study. For every class. That’s the realization that’s broken him. The grade was just the catalyst. (In lack of a better word)
I wouldn’t say “guess his way”, just that things before college came easily to him. He either learned them without much effort or basically already knew them. Because he really is smart, behind all the goofiness.
Yeah. This. I was where Walky is when I went to uni. School came easy for me – not because I was guessing, but I just absorbed it, often before class was covering it.
University brought a rather severe ramping up of the difficulty of the material, and less ability to coast by on knowing it – you had to knuckle down and do assignments, because tests counted for less. So the laziness that Walky and I cultivated due to being too fucking smart for the situations we were in was deadly.
Same for me, only it wasn’t so much the difficulty so much as the volume of material – by which I mean, the fact that there is simply no way for most college-level courses to cover everything during class time, so they have to do only the highlights and students are expected to make up the difference through reading, practice problems, etc. I was used to self-teaching, but not used to being expected to self-teach, and also not used to simply not being able to get a 95%+ just from the material covered in class.
I suppose guess was the wrong word to use. I meant that he probably was able to fill in the blanks of high school education by himself, either by knowing the answer from somewhere else or by making a guess based on what would make sense with the information he already had. I probably didn’t explain it much better here, sorry if I give the impression that he’s just a lucky idiot.
It’s going to shake Dorothy too, since she’s been relaxing a little bit, based partly on seeing Walky do well without much effort.
Not only will she help him study, but she’ll likely drive herself even harder.
Except it really is just one bad grade. Yes, he thinks it’s a big deal. But it’s not. Yes, he thinks his girlfriend will leave him. She won’t. Yes, he thinks it will destroy his self-image, but it won’t.
The whole point is that he’s catastrophizing. Believe me, as someone with an anxiety disorder, I can relate. But I can also relate to things like this never being as bad as you think.
That he thinks he has a far better girlfriend than he deserves only reinforces this anxiety.
No, it really isn’t.
It would be one bad grade if he generally studied and slacked off this time, but can do better next time. It’s not. It’s his entire scholastic strategy betraying him.
This is a collapse of his self-image (‘I’m so smart I succeed without trying’), and a realization that he needs to do something that he doesn’t have the discipline or skills to do in order to not actually fail the course (hopefully, it’s just that math course he’s having trouble with, and it’s not just serving to be representative of his whole course-load). (Also – He’s failed at least 2 tests, so far, one before he realized he needed to study, one after, because…he can’t do it.)
My only real annoyance with this plot was in that strip. That’s not how you study for math. That’s not even how you try to study for math when you don’t know how to study.
That’s how you fail to study for plenty of other subjects. Anything where you start with a reading assignment and then try to figure out what the important parts are and outline or take notes or fool yourself into thinking you comprehend it when you don’t. Memorization or theory or all sorts of other things.
Not math. Math you start by doing that night’s homework problems. If you can just do them, you’re pretty much done. If not, you can dig into that part of the chapter to figure it out, but it’s directed. There’s a goal. And it’s usually pretty easy to tell if you’re on the wrong track. There are also usually answers in the back for some of the problems. So do those, see if you get them right, that’s a good check.
Studying for math (and at least some of the hard sciences) is easy. The actual material may be hard, but the method for learning it is straight forward. Practice. A lot.
Now you need some self-discipline to do enough of it, which Walky certainly has trouble with, but the portrayal of it bothers me.
Oh, Walky…
I think most of the problem here is in Walky’s head, mostly pride and fear. The moment Dorothy finds out Walky is having problems she is going to be so happy to be able to help him study. It will be sickeningly sweet. But instead he is going to lie and hide it until he fails a midterm and she ends up angry and hurt that she didn’t trust him… and why the hell can I be so smart about this stuff with fictional characters but screw up in reality so often? (my wife asks… constantly)
*he didn’t trust her… got my pronouns switched up there…
So this isn’t a huge deal. This is month two of university. Walky could easily re-do this or just shape up. He has a ton of time and a relatively well off family.
I kind of doubt Willis will have Walky drop out in self loathing and rage because he doesn’t expect to get back the first year. This would be a huge commitment for the rest of the comic. It’d be kind of limp for Walky to drop out for an in comic week then come back.
What I really hope for is some Walkerton family stuff: Sal is doing well and the golden child is flopping. It could be interesting.
(Though as an aside I have problems with how it has been told so far).
Walky’s not going anywhere, none of the cast members are. At some point in time Walky will actually bring his grades back up, but that’s not the important part in a work without a set end. It puts Walky in a new status quo that opens up storylines that were previously closed off. How does he deal with bad grades? How will this affect things with Dorothy? Why does he put so much stock in being the Perfect Genius? Will he talk to Sal? Will he pursue tutoring? Who will tutor them, a pre-established character or a brand new one? How much of this self image is rooted in his relationship with Sal and his parents?
You know, journeys and destinations and all that jazz.
With Mary getting in motion for a reign of terror, AG still onna lose and Walky about to melt down…
This is going to be a delicious clusterfuck.